Michigan vineyards start tapping into draft wine

LANSING-- With the temperature rising and baseball in full swing, many Michigan residents may head to the bar for a cold beverage directly from the tap.

American light lagers, Canadian pilsners, Irish draughts, Michigan microbrews and a nice red wine will all be flowing smoothly from the tap.

Wait a minute -- red wine? From the tap?

Wine on draft is already popular at one northern Michigan vineyard and has potential to become more popular in the future, winemakers say.

"When we make wine, we at the winery drink it out of the tap," said Bryan Ulbrich, owner of Left Foot Charley Winery in Traverse City. "It's very common in Europe. We wanted to see how people responded."

Ulbrich began serving wine straight from his tanks on Valentine's Day.

"It's been extremely popular," Ulbrich said. "People come and fill up a one-liter growler. It's a good amount of wine for two people over dinner."

Growlers, or handled jugs used for holding draft beer and wine, come in 750 milliliter and 1, 1.5 and 3-liter sizes. The most common beer growler, the 1.8 liter (half-gallon) beer growlers, is federally regulated.

Andrea Miller, the communications representative for the Liquor Control Commission, said the state treats draft wine the same as other bottled alcoholic drinks.

"Draft wine is taxed the way we tax beer and bottled wine," she said. "As long as it's bottled in a federally-approved container, it's treated the same as any bottle of wine made by a licensed winery."

Miller also said there are no additional licensing requirements for draft wine.

At Left Foot Charley, draft wines are tapped from 1,000-liter tanks. It currently offers a pinot grigio, pinot blanc, riesling and a semi-dry blend called Murmur on tap.

Unlike beer kegs, wine tanks aren't nitrogen-pressurized. However, the tanks do regulate the nitrogen levels, but rely on gravity to be tapped.

While kegs at Left Foot Charley are unavailable, Ulbrich said the company will keg and supply wines to a Lake Michigan sunset cruise line as a field experiment this summer.

"Right now, Left Foot Charley is too young and too small to keg wine for customers," he said. "It invokes quite a bit of infrastructure--kegs, taps, nitrogen. It's hard to anticipate sales months from now."

Chris Moersch, general manager of Round Barn Winery, Distillery and Brewery in Baroda, said he first heard about tapping wines from Left Foot Charley and thinks it's a great idea.

"It makes a lot of sense," he said. "You can save on corks, glass and labels. It's the same reasons bars get kegs for beer."

In addition to saving money on supplies, Moersch said wine keeps better because of nitrogen regulation in the tanks.

Moersch said Round Barn offers seasonal wines such as sangria on tap, but sees draft wine as a viable way to more regularly serve customers in the future.

While popular in Europe and some trendy bars across the country, draft wine in Michigan is still rare.

Officials at the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council said Left Foot Charley is the first winery to offer it regularly.

Crick Haltom, co-owner of the Lawton Ridge Winery in Kalamazoo, said he knows of local restaurants that serve wine from a hose, but Left Foot Charley is the only winery he knows that offers draft wine to customers.

"At this point, we're unsure if we'll try to use draft wine at this time," he said. "We're unsure about the economics of it."

Andy Deloney, director of public affairs at the Michigan Restaurant Association, said draft wine was news to him.

"I haven't heard anything about it," he said. "But there are plenty of wine bars around Michigan. Michigan wines have grown in popularity because of quality and quantity."

For now, Left Foot Charley is the only guaranteed place to get your Michigan wine on draft -- but only through July. Ulbrich said he needs to see if it will remain in demand enough to serve year-round.